U.K. Game Biz Consultant Touts BBFC Rating System Over PEGI
While the point man for the Xbox 360 in Great Britain recently told GamesIndustry.biz that Microsoft preferred the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) rating scheme to that of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), a former journalist with ties to the video game industry has taken the opposite view.
The Tech Herald reports on comments made by EDGE editor Margaret Robertson, who now works as game industry consultant. Of the differences between the competing rating systems, Robertson said:
[BBFC is] a very robust approach to classifying games, in that it’s based on an independent party viewing and playing the game, and taking into account context and tone. [The BBFC system] sets a worldwide gold standard of game certification.
Although not quoting Robertson directly on this point, The Tech Herald reports that she believes BBFC is much more effective than PEGI because PEGI only requires that developers complete a questionnaire regarding game content.
The BBFC, of course, is the organization which, rather famously, banned Manhunt 2 in the U.K. last year. That action was overturned on appeal recently. The Tech Herald report notes that both rating systems run in parallel at present and predicts that the situation is unlikely to change.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I thought that PEGI had to see the games to rate them as well. If it really is only a developer submitted questionnaire, then I can kind of see the reason that some prefer the BBFC version
March 20th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I thought the whole idea of ratings is to determine the IMPACT of violence, sex, etc in medium, not the TONE and CONTEXT its in.
TONE and CONTEXT is subjective… is shooting nazi’s, e.g. any WW2 game, really any better than killing civilians e.g. GTA, or bloodthirsty psychos e.g. Condemned or Manhunt, or intelligent aliens e.g. Halo.
Schindlers List and SS experiment camp both have a dark tone in the context of the holocaust… what separates them? IMPACT
March 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
The BBFC doesn’t determine the context and tone - only the game’s devlopers can do that.
All the BBFC does is take context and tone into account when it comes to determining a game’s age rating.
The fact that it plays the games it rates makes it superior to PEGI, IMHO.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Thats what i meant… taking context and tone into account doesn’t work.
How is shooting a cop firing at you in GTA worse than shooting an enemy combatant firing at you?
March 20th, 2008 at 9:35 am
@ Hans
The differnece is that cops are supposed to be authority figures and the natural “good guy”. You are playing the “bad guy” fighting the “good guy”
In war games, you are almost always play the “good guy” fighting the “bad guys”.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
On the contrairy… This article describes the exact opposite
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/29969/BBFC-to-get-the-axe-after-Manhunt-madness
March 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Just sick of games getting banned with the tone and context as a factor, such as Manhunt 2, Dark Sector, etc.
When movies with the same tone or questionable context like it get a green light…
March 20th, 2008 at 11:37 am
But the BBFC DON’T play the games that come in. They do the same as the ESRB and watch publisher created videos of the most violent sections of a game and then decide on the age rating. Basically they do what they do with all films and just watch them and make a rating.
The only difference between the BBFC and ESRB is that the rating that is given to the game is then enforceable by law.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am
@ Trav
I believe it has been explained that the BBFC does play the games they rate. They may not play them all the way through, but the do play them for several hours. I guess the goal is to get a better understanding of the pacing of violence and sex.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
@ Xen
The article is a bit sensationalist. If your really just boil it down, the BBC Technology commentator says is “The BBFC may be under more scrutiny now.” No where does it suggest its getting the axe.
In short, the article is pish.
March 20th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
@ Trav
The BBFC certainly do play the games they rate. A friend of mine is a part time examiner at the BBFC and he, a long time gamer, plays through the games he rates. Obviously they can’t play through all aspects of the game; so they also have access to cut scenes and some ‘debug’ modes in order that they can access content more quickly than a normal playthrough.
I haven’t spoken to him about the Manhunt issue and I don’t know if he was involved in that classification.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Trav:
This is where I get annoyed by people who don’t know their facts telling everyone false information. The BBFC do a damn good job most of the time, and whilst I think ultimately the Manhunt 2 saga shows them a little out of touch with current moral standards of acceptability, they will no doubt change this and move on, just as older films have been previously banned and 30 years later get nothing more than a PG rating on DVD.
If you want to rip into a ratings system, take a closer look at PEGI. They really don’t do half of what the BBFC do and yet quite often we hear people on these forums suggest they are the better option, even though PEGI are wide open to exploitation.